


the walls are caving in

by FanfictioningFangirl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), WandaVision (TV)
Genre: A deep dive into the two days Wanda and Pietro spent under their bed waiting for the bomb to explode, Age of Ultron, Character Study, Civil War, Dark Flashbacks, Don't open this, Episode 5 Spoilers, Flashbacks, Like seriously if you're here for something positive, Minor Wanda Maximoff/Vision, Missing Scenes, Siblings, TW: not self harm but vague mentions of self inflicted pain, WandaVision spoilers, WandaVision's barely there but it's there, You Have Been Warned, it's all my theories in two sentences, thought without plot, unhappy flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29247306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanfictioningFangirl/pseuds/FanfictioningFangirl
Summary: The window above them breaks and a second shell appears in front of the bed. Wanda screams. She’s shaking all over. Tears stream down her cheeks and Pietro squeezes her hand. This is it. This should be it.Nothing happens.They wait for minutes. For hours. All around them, Wanda can hear the world falling apart, but they don’t dare move. The shell is too close to her. Close enough that, if she reached out, Wanda thinks she could touch it. There’s a name printed on the side — a name that feels synonymous with death. A name that Wanda swears she’ll never forget.Wanda is no stranger to cages. From her childhood to Westview, a retelling of the times in Wanda's life when she felt trapped. Mild spoilers for episode 5 of WandaVision.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 10
Kudos: 57





	the walls are caving in

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Spoilers for Episode 5 of WandaVision. Proceed with caution.  
> TW: not self harm but small things that could count if you get very triggered.

Wanda can’t sleep.

The TV in her bedroom has been blaring since they got back from Lagos. The flashing images from earlier that day serve as a constant reminder of what went wrong. Of what Wanda did. They air half-blurred images of the bodies found. They replay the moments when she’d sent Rumlow and the bomb crashing into the building, and Wanda flinches at the sight. She knows, better than anyone else, what it would have been like to be inside.

“Seventeen dead,” the news anchor says. “And nearly fifty injured.”

It was ten when she’d first tuned in two hours ago. Wanda suspects the number will be higher by tomorrow morning. She’d known she fucked up the moment she felt herself lose control of the bomb. She’d sent it too high too quickly, and the distance had made her powers falter. Wanda felt this rush of exhilaration when she’d stopped Rumlow from hurting Steve and she’d had been so lost in saving everyone down below, that she hadn’t once stopped to consider her surroundings.

 _“Looking over your shoulder needs to become second nature,”_ Nat had said earlier today, and for the first time, Wanda’s seen what can go wrong when she doesn’t do just that.

She claws at the material of her jeans, finding a spot where they’re ripped and digging her nails into her skin. Her throat feels suddenly blocked. She’s gasping for air, her body trembling with the effort it takes to breathe.

They’re talking about her again. Questioning her abilities. Her right to operate in Nigeria. Whether she should be allowed to roam around unchecked.

She digs her nails in deeper, and the sharp pain drags Wanda out of the maze of thought she’s lost in. Her lungs open, and Wanda gasps, breathing in heavily. Tears brim in her eyes.

She falls back into bed, and a low, strangled sob escapes her.

Without meaning to, Wanda remembers two children who’d been stuck under a bed, waiting for death to find them. She remembers cursing Stark and the Americans who thought they were allowed to wage war in her home.

(Wanda wonders what Pietro would have said if he knew she’s become the kind of murderer they’d grown up hating.)

* * *

_They hear the planes before they see them._

_Pietro’s up at once, rushing to the window, Wanda at his heels. They press their noses against the glass, heads tilted, hoping to spot one._

_“Wanda, Pietro,” Mama says. “Get back.”_

_That’s when the first bomb hits. The building shakes. Mama stumbles, hitting her head on the kitchen counter and crumbling in a heap on the ground._

_“Go to your room,” Dad shouts. He stands up, unsteadily making his way towards Ma. He never reaches her though — when the floor starts to fall apart, it takes Dad first._

_Pietro reacts first. He grabs Wanda’s hand, pulling her into their bedroom and under the bed. His face in her hair, his arm wrapped around her stomach, holding her close._

_“Are they—” Wanda says, but she feels Pietro shake his head._

_“They’ll be okay,” he says. Promises. Lies. It’s easier to pretend like hope is still an option._

_The window above them breaks, and a second shell appears in front of the bed. Wanda screams. She’s shaking all over. Tears stream down her cheeks and Pietro squeezes her hand._ _This is it. This should be it._

_Nothing happens._

_They wait for minutes. For hours. All around them, Wanda can hear the world falling apart, but they don’t dare move. The shell is too close to her. Close enough that, if she reached out, Wanda thinks she could touch it. There’s a name printed on the side — a name that feels synonymous with death. A name that Wanda swears she’ll never forget._

* * *

Wanda wakes up gasping for breath.

She sits up, tugging at her hair till the sharp pain forces her back to reality; into the present.

“Alright, Maximoff?” Sam asks from the cell across hers, and Wanda nods, pressing her back against the cool brick wall and focusing on her breathing till it’s steady again.

The Raft, Clint had told her, was where the government kept it’s most dangerous criminals. That’s what they are now — _criminals._ The collar around her neck suppresses her powers, the blue-black jumpsuit she’s wearing is itchy and uncomfortable.

The walls of Wanda’s cell — of the entire underground room — are a dull green-grey colour. The lights flicker frequently, as though the guards in charge couldn’t care less about them. There’s a single cot pressed against the wall, but the mattress is stiff.

She stands up and Sam’s eyes follow her. Wanda wishes, not for the first time, that she could touch their minds and see what they’re thinking. She wants to know that she’s not the only one going mad. Instead, Wanda closes her eyes, hand outstretched and fingers brushing against the cool bricks that line the walls. She counts the number of steps across. The number of steps diagonal. If the others think she’s acting strange, they say nothing about it.

When they’d first pushed her in, locking the gate behind her, Wanda had gone numb. Her lungs had felt constricted, her head had throbbed.

Wanda is no stranger to being caged or trapped. There was the time she'd spent two days tucked under their bed with only Pietro for company, there had been the long dormitories that they'd been locked in when they were experimented on and, later on, the cell she'd been kept in — close enough to Pietro that she could nudge him with her brain to check if he was still there and yet, far enough that she could not see him or hold him. The looming walls of her cage now feel like they're going to close in on her and, though this cell is bigger than the others she's stayed in, it brings back memories she's worked hard to suppress.

“Wanda,” Clint had said, hearing her gasps for breath, and though Wanda couldn’t see him, his voice grounded her. “Breathe. With me. In. Out. In. Out.” And slowly, her lungs had opened up again and the world had come into focus once more.

She does that now too. Breathing in and out until the cage — five steps in any direction, and six diagonal — doesn't feel like it's closing in on her. Until her nightmare, a blur of images from Wanda's childhood at Sokovia, fades from her memory.

Wanda doesn’t know how long they’ve been imprisoned for, but she’s quickly growing desperate to get out. They don’t deserve this. They shouldn’t have to choose between their powers and their freedom. That’s not how the world is supposed to work. Wanda knows she wouldn't have had it any other way — that she'd rather be trapped here than be free in a world where the choice of when and how to use her powers isn't her own. That doesn't make imprisonment any easier though.

She wonders if they'll ever be let out of here. Wanda wonders, not for the first time, if she'll ever see the light of day again. 

* * *

_Wanda doesn’t remember falling asleep._

_It’s still dark outside when she wakes up and the air is thick with the pungent odour of urine. Wanda retches, suddenly aware of the dampness around her skirt. Near her legs. Neither of them acknowledges it._

_The space under the bed has become their world._

_Pietro tries to talk about school, but he chokes up and sobs into her shoulder instead. She squeezes his hand_ — _still wrapped around her waist._

_Outside their bed, the city has gone silent. The attack has ended for tonight at least, and that could mean that rescue teams will soon be on their way and they’ll be freed. It’s more likely, though, that their building will crumble or a second attack will commence and the shell will go off, taking Wanda and Pietro with it._

_Her stomach aches from hunger. Her throat burns from thirst. They stop talking, communicating through squeezing each other’s hand — that’s all they have the strength for anymore._

_Wanda wonders if they’ll starve or die of thirst; or if they’ll keep waiting and waiting till the bomb to goes off. In her darkest moments, she wonders if a quick death might be easier than a prolonged one._

_“I love you,” Pietro whispers when the sun sets on their second day under the bed._

_“I love you too,” Wanda whispers. She wonders if these will be the last words they ever say to each other. She wonders if they'll live to leave the space under their bed._

* * *

“Wanda,” Visions says. “It’s time.”

They’ve tried everything. They tried to extract the stone without killing Vis, they tried to keep him away from Thanos. People have died for Wanda — for Vision — and she knows he’s right. That they don’t have a choice anymore.

She feels it, just like she had with Pietro, when Vis dies. When Pietro, had died she’d felt the ghost of his last smile still spread across his lips. With Vision, Wanda feels hope. They’ve saved the universe; they've stopped Thanos.

Pietro died doing the right thing, and it should be the same with Vision too.

It’s not.

Wanda hears herself scream when she realises what Thanos is doing. Her voice sounds distant to her own ears; like the realisation hits her before she fully understands what's going on and by then, it's already too late. Wanda rushes forward, but she’s tossed away like it’s nothing to him. _Now is no time at all_. Everything — the Wakandans that die, the glimmer of hope Wanda had felt in Vision only moments ago. All of it, for nothing.

She feels it the moment Vision comes back. She feels his confusion. His surprise. And then, silence.

Wanda crawls to where he is, staring into the gaping hole where the Mind Stone used to sit. Vision's body has turned grey. His eyes are hollow and lifeless. They chose wrong, Wanda realises, and it fills her with an ache and a wave of anger that threatens to burst from within. _She_ chose wrong. Wanda's lost Vision and she's doomed the world and she doesn't know if the anger that burns within her is for herself or at Thanos.

She should get up and fight him, but if there's one thing Wanda's tired. So tired.

When Thanos snaps his fingers, Wanda closes her eyes, willing death to steal her away; to put an end to her endless suffering. She’s lost so much. She’s sacrificed too much. She can’t keep fighting — not anymore. Not when every time she does the right thing, it amounts to nothing.

Death, for the first time, finds her.

It's a pity it doesn't last.

* * *

_On the third day, they hear a noise. Wanda feels Pietro shift against her, but they’ve long since lost the strength to talk or to move. Her limbs are stiff from lying still for so long and she's lost all feeling in her limbs. Her mind is numb with the constant ache that sits in her stomach. Her throat burns when she swallows and Wanda doesn’t think she’d be able to talk, even if she tried._

_They’ve gotten used to the smells. To the fear. They’ve accepted the fact that they will die here. That there’s no hope of escape._

_And yet, on the third day, they hear a noise. Help._

_The strangers move the rubble brick by brick, and Wanda stares at the shell unblinkingly, waiting. She doesn’t let herself hope. Hope, the last two days have taught her, isn’t enough. Hope won’t bring her parents back. It won’t make things normal again. It won’t guarantee their safety. So she watches the shell as the bricks are pulled away, one by one, from the wall Pietro is pressed against._

_The building doesn’t collapse on them. No holes appear in the floor taking them, or the shell, away. They’re pulled out. Pietro first and then Wanda, and they’re half-dragged, half-carried away from what used to be their home._

_When the sun sets on the third day, they’re bathed, clothed and alive and deep down, Wanda knows she should be grateful for it. But she’s not. Not after everything they've gone through._

_Pietro never leaves her side; their hands are always entwined. There are things from the last two days that they will never discuss. Things that only the two of them will ever know about. He’s there when she wakes up screaming in the nights that follow. Wanda’s there every time Pietro goes suddenly still, a distant look in his eyes. A week ago, everything had been perfect. A week ago, they weren't orphans; all alone in a world that was falling apart._

_Pietro’s all Wanda has left in the world and she’s determined not to lose him too._

_(She does.)_

* * *

Wanda gets up the second time the someone knocks on the door.

She can feel Vision watching her just as she can feel his frustration from the argument they’ve been having. He thinks it’s Agatha at the door; he thinks she’s planned this. He’s not wrong, but he's not right either.

Wanda doesn’t know how they ended up in Westview. Her memories of the moments before are vague. She knows things that Vision doesn’t, though — that he’ll die the moment he steps out of the town’s perimeter; that it’s more than just her magic keeping him alive, but she doesn’t dare tell him any of that. The Vision Wanda remembers always did the right thing. She knows that if given a choice, he’d choose to leave, and Wanda’s not ready to lose him again. Not when they’re finally living the life they always wanted. _A normal life._ The one thing that she's always been robbed of.

There's a part of her that knows Vision is right when he says that he deserves to be able to choose. Wanda knows better than anyone else what it means to have a choice, but sometimes, people don't choose right. It had been Wanda's choice to keep Vision alive until the last minute, and it had ultimately been her fault when Thanos won. She'd chosen to fight alone — to send Pietro away — and he'd never come back to her. Sometimes, it's better to choose for others; especially when you know more than they do.

It hurts to have Vision disagree with her. It hurts to have to fight with him or control him, but Wanda's doing the right thing. She knows she is.

Wanda stops at the door, sniffling loudly and forcing a smile on her face. She's ready to face whoever it is like nothing's happened. Then she opens the door, and her smile disappears.

She’d recognise his hair anywhere — the silver-grey it had turned after the Mind Stone worked, the roots still the same dark shade they used to be before Hydra got to them. Hair just like her father’s, Wanda remembers. He’s grinning at her stupidly, and when he steps inside, he calls her his sister. 

“Pietro?” Wanda whispers, and he pulls her into a warm embrace.

His accent is different. His eyes are unfamiliar. His smile has changed.

This isn’t the same boy who held Wanda under the bed. This isn’t the boy who’d sneak into the girl’s dormitory at the Hydra facility just to be with her each night. This isn’t the man who died for — for Clint.

The man in front of her is Pietro, it’s just not _her_ Pietro.

But it doesn't matter, because this is proof that Wanda shouldn’t leave. It’s proof that Westview is her shot at the life she’s always dreamed of and Wanda's more certain than ever that she isn't going to let go of it. Not without a fight.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I needed to write something to vent my theories and thoughts after episode 5 of WandaVision and YouTube ended up recommending a handful of scenes from Age of Ultron that broke me. So this happened.  
> I pretty much wrote it in a single siting and I think I'm making a point about instances when Wanda was trapped physically or in a situation that she couldn't escape and eventually, how she chooses to stay trapped in the Westview. The bits with Pietro were my favourite to write, especially because they gloss over it in Ultron but the whole thing must have been so traumatising.  
> I have not edited this. Or slept in the past two days so this might be a bit all over the place. The fic might not be entirely canon-compliant either because it's been a while since I watched any of these movies and there's only so much you can gather from Wiki.  
> Thoughts and criticism are welcome. If you want to scream about WandaVision you can find me on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/fanfictioningfangirl)  
> As always, thanks for reading!!


End file.
